William Cronon is a historian at the University of Wisconsin. His speciality is environmental history and he, in fact, can be credited with inventing the discipline (watch a brief video from PBS where he discusses the National Parks above).
A few semesters ago I took a class from Bill Cronon. It was a real "lecture" course, the kind that is generally considered too boring for today's plugged in, tech distracted students. The class was given in a large lecture hall, was always packed with students sitting in the aisles and not a single student in the class had a cell phone or computer out during the lecture. It's not that Bill prohibited technology but rather that the students hung on every word of a gifted lecturer (my students, on the other hand, warned me never to speak for more than 15 minutes!).
Now, evidently, Bill Cronon has had enough of Wisconsin politics (one sympathizes). He recently started a blog, the Scholar as Citizen (here), wrote an Op Ed for the New York Times discussing the ongoing radical break with Wisconsin political tradition (here) and immediately was attacked by the Republican party who slapped him with a FOIA request for all his emails dealing with Governor Scott Walker, etc.
What prompted the attack? Prof. Cronon is looking into (here) conservative groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the State Policy Network (SPN), the MacIver Institute, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI) and their funding sources (the Koch brothers, etc.). Prof. Cronon is studying these groups because they are having an important impact on US politics and because the groups seem not to have been investigated extensively by the popular press.
Bill Cronon is being the historian and the Republican Party is, I guess, being the Republican Party, the party of Nixon, Watergate and Dirty Tricks.
You're right on here, Blogger George. Cronin is doing what faculty are supposed to do, look at the facts wherever they take them. He is what has made UW great. This also reminds us that even if UW Madison becomes a public authority, there will be political incursions on its integrity as a place of learning and inquiry.
ReplyDeleteI'm conflicted about the Republican Party FOIA request for Cronon's emails. One side of me believes that everything at wisc.edu is public record. Another side of me agrees with Cronon and, evidently, the University in denying the request. FOIA wasn't designed to be used by political parties to strike at people that threaten them. This is a pretty obvious case involving academic freedom.
ReplyDelete